That's it? That's as bad as it gets? Some of those points I can't speak to since they weak on their face. As to point 2, 20% will suffer from depression, how does that relate to the national average? 20% seems like a more than reasonable number.

To my mind, a larger study needs to be done on the effects the loss of our manufacturing base has on the citizens as a whole. The aforementioned prestige of the legal profession along with the decrease in manufacturing jobs would, on its face, seem to cause a rise in the number of lawyers.

As a returning student in pre-law, I've spoken to many 18-22yr olds who want to go to law school. Most are incapable of articulating why they want to go into the profession. That isn't to say they won't become good attorneys, but in my opinion it might be an indicator of how happy they will be with their choice down the road.

Even so, so what? I'd be willing to bet there are more people in service sector jobs who are telling their kids to stay in school.

Now at almost 90 years of age, he still argues against my statements that most lawyers and judges are corrupt. I do not have the heart to set him straight. I keep my anger hidden. I don't want to tell him that the lawyer who the court appointed to protect my mother from guardianship, actually lied and told the court that my mother consented to a guardian, when she didn’t. I can’t tell him that even though the statute says he must, the lawyer never fought for her wishes to come back home and die surrounded by people she knows and loves and who love her. I can not bring myself to tell him that the lawyers drained my mother’s entire estate and that they are going to sell her car and then probably the house so that she will be “medicaid eligible”. I keep it secret so he won’t become fearful that this might happen to him. No elderly person is safe.

So I live every day with heartache and and fear. I wonder what I will say when the inevitable moment comes when she runs out of money and the court appointed “counsel” puts her in a nursing home where, more than likely, she will be drugged to death.

Maybe a few of those lawyers who “find something missing” in their profession might find fulfilment in honesty and integrity by insisting that lawyers and judges have accountability. Wouldn’t that make for a better world.

Annie McKenna
2008